My wife and I flew to New York on 22nd Jan to depart on Norwegian Gem the next day for my first ever cruise. After standing in a long line for a very long time we finally stepped onto he vessel and being very thirsty ordered a latte and bottle of water from the atrium bar. Having purchased the ' ultimate beverage package' I was astounded to find these drinks are not included and we would have to pay extra for them. A bad start but it got much worse. Very soon we became aware of large numbers of children and youths, surprising since we were in term time. It was clear that the demographics of this extremely large group were from a specific community Must not conform to the normal school holiday calendar.

The parents or guardians of this group for the entire cruise exerted no control over their children who were very rude, unruly and disrespectful to both the staff and other passengers on this cruise. The specific needs of this group made it very difficult for the staff to cater for the rest of the passengers as they were pressurised by this group. We witnessed as did many other passengers, staff being abused as were anyone else who stood up for themselves. It was so bad that we found ourselves constantly moving to get away from all the dreadful behaviour.

Eventually we complained but by this time my wife had been in tears more than once. The member of staff that took our complaint admitted that many more passengers had also complained, she was very apologetic but our holiday had by then been ruined. We were later offered a bottle of wine and a cheeseboard to make things better, wow, great! Read more